Exploring the Foundations of Diversity: A Trans-Cultural Learning Lodge for National Science Foundation Program Directors

Silver Buffalo Consulting, Pt. Richmond CA

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal #: 09-35936 PI(s): von Thater-Braan, Rose Institution: Silver Buffalo C. Pt. Richmond, CA 94801-0000 Title: SpProj.: Exploring the Foundations of Diversity: A Trans-Cultural Learning Lodge Project Proposed: This very non-traditional project for a relatively focused audience, aiming to teach, train, and learn, takes place across the larger academic environment, particularly within the Native American (NA) communities. To augment the more formal methodologies of conferences, papers, and lecture-based learning, the project intends to enhance understanding for the scientific community on a more personal network level. Using the Socratic method combined with the dialog processes should encourage a renewed focus on people-to-people, face-to-face learning beyond iPhone, Facebook, texting, and internet-based tools more commonly used in today's world. The work enables broader dissemination of results through selected workshops for the wider NA community, and even diverse groups across the university community and government agencies. The proposal states: 'Trans-cultural learning is rigorous primarily because it requires suspension of unexamined assumptions and reveals the cultural lens through which we view one another.' Thus, the work constitutes an educational policy effort, offering several 'convenings' focused on science, engineering, and educational policies and strategies. The basic concept of the 'convenings,' a Native American Concept, uses a forum, a lodge, or a wide-area discussion at which all aspects of the topic area are discussed and heard before any decisions or dissentions are admitted. Since this idea is used in places like Mongolia and Central Asia (e.g., the lawya jurga of Afghanistan), the concept may well be Asian in origin. The NA form of such meetings is couched in the form of 'lodges' in the project. The work has the potential for creating a broader understanding of a more informal technology known as 'talking circles' in 'Indian Country.' By its very nature, the proposed meetings are diverse and open to all subject areas within the umbrella of science, engineering, and education. Various events will be held to which NSF personnel and some PIs will be invited and at which Native scientists, scholars, educators, and traditional knowledge holders would attend with the purpose of exposing the attendees to the Native learning processes, culture, and knowledge, thus opening new ways of thinking and other cultures that approach knowledge and life in different ways. The project encourages diversity in science endeavors, both among the people involved in science and in the approaches to scientific research. The work enables understanding alternative sources of knowledge and generates 'shared perspectives from which radical new approaches may address commonly held goals.' Broader Impacts: This project is all about broader impact. In the past three years the American Society of Engineering Education (www.asee.org) has focused on a similar 'year of dialog' approach with excellent results in increased informal networking among the members and has established several Special Interest Groups (SIGs) within the Corporate Member Council. The Learning Lodge exhibits the same potential for success via outreach encompassing diversity, K-12, and life-long learning forums.